Valeurs Actuelles: Famous French website celebrates Abdelrehim Ali's article ‘Dismantling the Brotherhood: The necessity of the moment’

Famous French website Valeurs Actuelles celebrated the article of journalist Abdelrehim Ali, chairman and editor-in-chief of Al-Bawaba News and head of the Center for Middle East Studies in Paris (CEMO), titled “Dismantling the Brotherhood: The necessity of the moment”.

The site highlighted the article on its front page, praising the important information it contained.

Following is the translated text of the article:

France today stands at a crossroads, not because of the corona pandemic, as this kind of humanitarian disaster can quickly be defeated by science, as happened before with the many pandemics that humanity has experienced.

But what I mean here is the pandemic of extremism and terrorism, the scourge from which France has suffered for many decades and which the government recently decided to confront decisively by issuing an anti-separatist law.

By the crossroads here, I mean not only the opposition that the government faces at home from some poles of the left and human rights advocates, but also because of the international situation that is about to change, and radically with regard to this issue, especially after the announcement of the victory of Democrat Joe Biden to the presidency in America and its effects on the movement of political Islamism in the world due to what his predecessor, Barack Obama, did in providing support to this trend until they all contributed to the overthrow of several countries in the Middle East, leading to what Condoleezza Rice called “creative chaos”, the effects from which the world is still suffering to the present day.

The crossroads here means that France, with all its currents, be alert and aware of this problem (the fight against separatism), and that it defines the causes well and seeks to confront it with the utmost firmness and speed at the same time, because the battle it is about, from my point of view, is a battle of existence.

When I talk about an accurate identification of the main reason behind this chronic pandemic, which French society has been suffering from for more than four decades, I mean what I say.

Throughout those four decades, since Jean-Pierre Chevènement's attempts in 1999 through Nicolas Sarkozy's attempts in 2003 until now, these attempts have unfortunately been reproducing the crisis by misidentifying it as a crisis of religion. Hence, the solution has always been to seek the assistance of some implementers within this religion to solve the problem and deal with the state as its representatives, which has always contributed to reproducing the crisis, because we put the solution in the hands of those who caused the problem.

Many decades ago, the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood hijacked Islam, along with it the Muslims of France, in a clear crime that took place on the banks of the Seine, in full view and hearing of everyone, and perhaps with the contribution of some, intentionally or due to lack of understanding.

It is time to change the strategy to meet the challenge and define precisely who the enemy is, because the Muslim Brotherhood is not just a “conservative” organization; they are classified in the UAE and Egypt as a terrorist organization, and their official branch in Palestine’s Gaza is the Hamas terrorist organization, which adopted the method of suicide operations based on a fatwa from Brotherhood mufti Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who publicly approved these operations provided that they are under the direction of the Brotherhood. Then, in January 2011, it carried out the orders of its leadership in Egypt to storm the borders, attack Egyptian police stations, storm prisons, and release 36 Brotherhood leaders, including Mohamed Morsi, as well as two leaders from the Lebanese Hezbollah and others from Hamas, which led to spreading chaos in the country and enabling the Brotherhood’s mother organization in Egypt to overthrow the Mubarak regime and take his place in power.

Close cooperation between Hamas and ISIS

In July 2017, Issam Saleh, a leader in the ISIS-affiliated Army of Islam group in Gaza, held a press conference in which he announced an end to the existing dispute between ISIS and Hamas, adding that consultations took place between the two parties, after which it was agreed that ISIS would stop the bombings in the Gaza Strip, provided that Hamas stops its arrests of ISIS members.

The matter did not stop there, but it came to the point of cooperation and providing logistical assistance by Hamas to ISIS, especially in Sinai, in its confrontation with the Egyptian army, where Israel’s Jewish News Syndicate published an exclusive report about obtaining dangerous leaked documents from within ISIS, revealing dangerous details and scenes about the ongoing war in Sinai.

The Israeli institution explained that it had obtained internal documents belonging to ISIS, drafted by one of the organization's leaders named Abu Maram al-Jazairi, in which he disclosed the party providing significant aid to the ISIS branch in Sinai known as the Sinai Province.

The 11-page document indicated that the Sinai Province was receiving significant aid from the military wing of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

This was not the first time that Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, cooperated with terrorist organizations. The documents of Case No. 230 of 2009, known as the Hussein Mosque bombings, which killed a French citizen, revealed that the two plotters, Khaled Mahmoud Mustafa and Ahmed Mohamed Sadiq, used Gaza as a safe haven, under the watchful eye and with the protection of the Hamas movement, while a Belgian of Tunisian origin, Farouk Taher, used the tunnels to return from Gaza to Egypt to participate in the bombings after obtaining directions from the leaders of the Hamas organization in Gaza.

The documents of case No. 409 of 2006 and No. 867 of 2005, known as the Egyptian Dahab and Sharm el-Sheikh bombings, also indicated that the two brothers, Ayman and Yusri Mohamed Hussein Muhareb, entered Gaza to receive training, financing and weapons to carry out those bombings. They met with Abu Suleiman, the leader of the movement, who supplied them with the funds needed to carry out the two operations.

The reader may imagine that these facts are old and most of them relate to the Brotherhood branch in Palestine, but we remind him of the US administration’s decision in January 2021 to include the Brotherhood’s Hasm movement on the list of terrorist organizations, a movement founded by Mohamed Kamal, a member of the International Guidance Office of the Brotherhood, who was killed in a security confrontation in the area of Maadi, a suburb of Cairo, in October 2016, which was not mentioned by the news of the movement’s inclusion as a terrorist organization in the United States.

Beginning of the Brotherhood threat

The international organization came to France in the 1980s with one goal, which the Brotherhood called at the time “empowerment in the West”.

This empowerment, according to their vision, takes place through three stages, working in parallel and not in succession.

First: Social empowerment by creating the social institutions by which French Muslims and immigrants are gathered and arranged into organized administrative units. It started with seven associations in 1989 and reached 250 in mid-2005.

Second: Economic empowerment through direct and indirect funding, where the latter is represented in diplomatic money bags that were used in building mosques, schools, cultural centers, and a number of other educational activities. Direct financing comes through donations and bank transfers, in addition to the proceeds of Islamic activities such as halal trade, Hajj and Umrah activities, and collecting zakat and alms.

Third: Cultural empowerment through the establishment of cultural centers and schools, and the approval and support of private education and home education, which allowed the Brotherhood to spread its curriculum in intellectual and religious education in all areas of those suburbs.

This empowerment in its three forms leads to political empowerment, which usually begins with affecting local and general elections, and develops into an important card that politicians should take into account in their electoral battles, until reaching a stage where the Brotherhood becomes a decisive card in any legislative or presidential elections.

According to these conclusions, the dismantling of this organization in all its social, economic and cultural manifestations becomes the duty of the moment in France. The new anti-separatist law may contribute to part of this dismantling process, but it will not be sufficient, of course, as the Brotherhood is known to have the ability to adapt to all circumstances and the skill to overcome all obstacles it has faced throughout its history. For nearly a hundred years, the Brotherhood succeeded in using the ambivalence of its opponents to turn it into its favor and build its institutions through it. The Egyptian experience is the best proof of that.

Dismantling will take years

That is why priority must be given, as a first step, to draining the sources of funding, monitoring and banning these associations, and prosecuting their leaders. These are the main weapons at our disposal to take the next decisive step, which is to dismantle the ideological system that this group has succeeded in instilling in French society through its schools, mosques and associations. This dismantling will require years of work in order to eradicate it. France is facing a complex process that has lasted for many years. Faster measures and stronger applications are required to conserve what can be saved. Otherwise, the state and society, unfortunately, will continue to work in a vicious circle.